This was the blog of a blacksmith.
Soot Happens, but you clean yourself up when you need to (even if it takes years). If you find that life isn't where you want it, just toss it back in the coals, bring it to heat, and reforge.

Friday, July 04, 2014

Independence Day

July 4, 1776 is the date 13 newly independent States placed at the top of their divorce paper. The decision had been made two days earlier on July 2. The war had been going on for over a year at this point. Work had already been started drafting the "Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union", which we operated under until they were replaced wholesale by The United States Constitution﻿ in 1788.

Most people today who were raised within these united States were educated in schools run by the States and regulated by Union. As such, we are led to believe that the Revolution was supported by the majority. It was not. It was supported only by a vocal minority, with an even smaller active minority. However, those vocal (and active) about continuing the existing relationship with the British Empire were a similarly sized minority. The vast majority of Americans grumbled about taxes, but didn't much want radical change, either; they were concerned with their own lives, keeping their families fed, and not being dragged into the war raging on around them. To most people, it didn't much matter who was in charge as, to their eyes, it didn't much affect their day-to-day lives.

This day, we celebrate our independence from the British Empire, officials of our current government will give speeches telling us how good it is to be "Free". To have liberated ourselves from such an oppressive government. The officials of the modern governments of this union should be hiding in shame. They give speeches today to distract us from the fact that our current government is worse than the one from which that minority declared independence (and I am not just talking about the current POTUS, as things were bad long before he or his predecessor took their Oath of Office).

Today, go forth and spend time with your family, friends, and neighbors; remember that today is the date we filed our divorce papers with our oppressive government and that if we hit that tipping point, if thing get bad enough, if the oppressed realize they have a common enemy, it may become necessary to dissolve the political bands that bind us, to alter or abolish the current government and institute a new, to file for another divorce.